The subject invention relates to a method for printing tickets at remote locations and, more particularly, to printing readable tickets at remote locations.
Tickets such as concert, theater, movie, museum, trade show, airline and sports tickets, etc., are documents having a substantial, intrinsic value which, typically, may be presented by any bearer to gain admittance or exercise an entitlement. Since such tickets may have substantial cash value, there exists a continuing problem of preventing the issuance of fraudulent tickets.
The issuance of many types of tickets, such as theater tickets, is currently controlled by means of controlled supplies (e.g. serialized ticket stock, specially printed ticket stock, etc.) and by allowing tickets to be issued only by controlled, authorized issuers (e.g. ticket agents). Controlled supplies are expensive, difficult to control, and prone to theft or counterfeiting. Typically, one stood in line to purchase a ticket at the place the event was being held or purchased the ticket over the phone from an authorized ticket agent who mailed the ticket to the purchaser.
Currently, ticketing companies are giving purchasers the option of printing their electronic tickets at home using ordinary paper, a personal computer printer and an Internet connection. One of the problems in allowing people to print tickets at home is to ensure that the tickets are not counterfeit. One of the solutions suggested to solve the foregoing problem is to print an encrypted bar code on the ticket. Recent studies have shown that personal computer printers have difficulty in printing encrypted bar codes. Both resolution (dots/inch) and positional accuracy seem to be the major limiting factors. Furthermore, the printing technology used is another major factor, specifically when combined with the type of paper the ticket is printed on.
Unfortunately, if a ticket is printed properly on ordinary paper with an encrypted bar code, the ticket can be photocopied, and the seller of the ticket will be unable to distinguish between the original real ticket and the photocopied ticket.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by determining the printer and paper that are used to print the ticket and allowing the purchaser of the ticket to check the quality of the printed ticket. The system will first capture the ticket purchaser""s printer type and configuration setting information, paper, ink, or toner combination and then use the foregoing information to determine if the ticket purchaser""s computer printer can print an acceptable ticket. The ticket purchaser will also be given an opportunity to print a test pattern so that the purchaser will be able to check the print quality of the printer.
If it is determined that an acceptable ticket may be printed, the ticket purchaser""s computer printer (laser printer, ink jet printer, facsimile printer) will print the ticket. The electronic ticket will contain ticketing information, an encrypted bar code, and a graphic field. The graphic field is designed to produce a xe2x80x9ctellxe2x80x9d, a visible known image (a large number of detectable halftone gray steps) when printed by a personal computer printer. Additionally, the graphic field will change in appearance when the ticket originally printed by the personal computer printer is digitally reproduced either by scanning or photocopied.
The digital scanning and photocopying processes are degrading ones that reduce the number of detectable halftone gray steps produced in the copy. These processes also give rise to a pronounced mottle at the transition zone from white to black that does not exist in the original printed electronic ticket. The loss of some of the gray steps in the graphic field will indicate to an observer that the reproduced ticket is counterfeit.
This invention takes advantage of the fact that the human eye cannot resolve the individual spots in the intermediate gray zone that is somewhere between white and black. The human eye interprets the intermediate patch of adjacent spots in the gray zone as a particular shade of gray, when, in fact, the adjacent spots in the gray zone are black spots that vary in size due to process variations introduced by the photocopying and/or scanning processes. The human eye is very sensitive to slight changes of grayness in the intermediate gray zone region. The human eye is very sensitive to minuscule variations in the apparent grayness of the patch. Consequently, the human eye will be able to observe that the graphic field, or tell, on an electronic ticket will change in appearance when the ticket originally printed by the personal computer printer is digitally reproduced either by scanning or photocopied. Thus, the human eye will be able to determine when a copied electronic ticket is a fake ticket.